This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth

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Friday, November 27, 2015

"Unknown on 11/25/15" made a comment at "part 2 - Debating a sock-puppet" that was another text book sock puppet routine, keep throwing crap at the messenger so that we all will ignore the basics and the evidence.

Considering the amount of time it took looking his nonsense and then coming up with the information needed to clarify his delusions I'm going to post this as a stand alone. (touch up edits 11/27/15 AM)

Oh boy and what a story 'breitbart' has for us:"Professor Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert is a retired geologist and data computation expert. He has painstakingly examined and tabulated all NASA GISS’s temperature data series, taken from 1153 stations and going back to 1881. His conclusion: that if you look at the raw data, as opposed to NASA’s revisions, you’ll find that since 1940 the planet has been cooling, not warming."

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Oh, but wait. This story was written by that James Delingpole, an extreme libertarian who sees everything as a government plot out to destroy his way of life. He's made a habit of rejecting climate science and professes to believe there's been no global warming since 1998. Not exactly a stable source to get one's information from. He's more cult figure than source of information.

A. GISS uses temperature data for long-term climate studies. For station data to be useful for such studies, it is essential that the time series of observations are consistent, and that any non-climatic temperature jumps, introduced by station moves or equipment updates, are corrected for. In adjusted data the effect of such non-climatic influences is eliminated whenever possible. Originally, only documented cases were adjusted, however the current procedure used by NOAA/NCEI applies an automated system that uses systematic comparisons with neighboring stations to deal with undocumented instances of artificial changes. The processes and evaluation of these procedures are described in numerous publications — for instance, Menne et al., 2010 and Venema et al., 2012 — and at the NOAA/NCEI website.

Q.Does GISS do any data checking and alterations?

A. Yes. GISS applies semi-automatic quality control routines listing records that look unrealistic. After manual inspection, those data are either kept or rejected. GISS does make an adjustment to deal with potential artifacts associated with urban heat islands, whereby the long-term regional trend derived from rural stations is used instead of the trends from urban centers in the analysis.

The “report” to which Palmer referred was actually a series of blog posts, written by climate change denier Paul Homewood, which were then highly publicized in twostories by Christopher Booker in the Daily Telegraph in London. Both writers focused on the adjustments made to temperature readings at certain monitoring stations around the world, and claimed that those adjustments throw the entire science of global warming into question. This is not at all the case, and those adjustments are a normal and important part of climate science.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. agency responsible for monitoring national and global temperature trends, has addressed these types of adjustments several times before. NOAA addresses the subject in a Q&A on its website ...

Another interesting story with actual experts explaining what these adjustments are all about.

I think I have worked out where commentator James Delingpole is coming from. He pretends to be a climate change denier and enemy of environmentalists. In reality he's a mole, paid by Greenpeace to inflict as much damage on the anti-green cause as possible. And he's doing a marvellous job.

His blog posts for the Telegraph consist of the kind of ill-informed viciousness provided for free by trolls on comment threads everywhere, but raised by an order of magnitude. He puts a wrecking ball through any claims the denial lobby might have to being civilised, intelligent or serious. His followers act as an echo-chamber, magnifying his nastiness. Between them they succeed in alienating anyone who might want an informed debate. But this week he surpassed himself.

At the heart of the problem lie the computer models which, for 25 years, have formed the basis for the IPCC’s scaremongering: they predicted runaway global warming, when the real rise in temperatures has been much more modest. So modest, indeed, that it has fallen outside the lowest parameters of the IPCC’s prediction range. The computer models, in short, are bunk.

A study’s results are badly mischaracterized by The Register, Express, and Breitbart to push a political agenda of climate denialDana Nuccitelli | Thursday 15 October 2015

However, several conservative media outlets falsely claimed that the study had uncovered a “global cooling process.” Writing for Breitbart, James Delingpole claimed that the paper “may pose a serious threat to man-made global warming theory.” The Register and Express both claimed that temperatures have been stable for 15 years (they’ve actually risen by about 0.2°C during that time), and that this paper could explain that fictional temperature stability.

The problem lies in the fact that unlike Carbon Brief, whose reporters discussed the study and its implications with two climate scientists including one of the study authors, these conservative media outlets tried to interpret its meaning on their own. This led to mischaracterizations of the paper that Professor Forster described as “quite crazy.”

All of these conservative media pieces misrepresenting the paper shared another characteristic. Each revealed its bias by wishfully suggesting the international climate negotiations that will soon be held in Paris could be undermined by the study’s findings.

Rather than contact the study’s authors or any other climate scientists, the Express and Breitbart quoted Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist, climatefake expert, and director of the anti-climate policy Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). ...

Delingpole has disputed the findings of climate science on global warming for a number of years. He has written "I am not a scientist and have never claimed to be,"and that he does not have a science degree, but is "a believer in empiricism and not spending taxpayers' money on a problem that may well not exist."

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Sadly this is exactly the type of clown that Republican/libertarians have no problem embracing. It's not about learning anything, for them it's all about defending a hopeless belief system.

Now we get to the author of this lying contrarian meme Professor Dr. Friedrich Karl Ewert a retired geologist and data computation expert and member of "EIKE" who's rallying cry is: "Not the climate is at risk, but our freedom! Environmental protection: Yes! Climate protection: No". Apparently the dude is oblivious to how much our freedom is dependent on the healthy of our environment. More of that complacent disregard for the complexities of society and life, in favor of stupid political bromides.

These people think that ignoring what's happening to our climate system is demanded because of their own short-sighted economic interests, not because of any scientific basis.

Yeah try reading that blog - paranoia and conspiracy ideation with links not going to anything directly quoting Stern, but other heresy articles written in the same near hysterical style that makes a demon out of everyone they don't like.

Great for fueling political passions, but utterly worthless when it comes to learning about how our global heat and moisture distribution engine operates. Bishop-hill-net has a history of attacking Nicholas Stern - here's a interesting response to another recent PR gambit:

Lord Stern said that although robust expansion could be achieved until 2030 while avoiding dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions, rich nations may then have to consider reining in growth...."At some point we would have to think about whether we want future growth. We don't have to do that now."

(Emphasis added.) That would be the second sentence of the article BH linked to.

...Professor Stern, the chair of the Grantham research institute on climate change and the environment, said that it was a false dichotomy to posit growth against climate action. “To portray them as in conflict is to misunderstand economic development and the opportunities that we now have to move to the low-carbon economy,” he said. “To pretend otherwise is diversionary and indeed creates an ‘artificial horse race’ which can cause real damage to the prospects for agreement.” Green parties in Europe have often argued that decarbonisation requires an end to the model of economic growth “at all costs”. But Stern said that there was now “much greater understanding of how economic growth and climate responsibility can come together and, indeed, how their complementarity can help drive both forward”.

UN11/25 continues: now Yeo loses his libel for being a paid for green stooge with the judge calling his evidence: “implausible”, “unreliable”, “not honest”,”dishonest”, “untruthful”, “untrue” and “unworthy of belief”. (www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/11/25/yeoful-fail)

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What in the world does Tim Yeo have to do with honestly listening to what climate scientists are reporting, is beyond me. But it's typical of the disingenuous distractions and misdirections climate science contrarians depend on. 'Keeping our eyes off the prize' is their goal.

UN11/25 continues: satellites still plodding along showing the pause is real.

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But, only if you confine your learning to ClimateDepot's distortions and ignore everything else!

Incidentally, do you understand the difference between global surface temperatures and our climate system's heat content? Your supposed hiatus occurred in global surface calculations(excluding polar regions and other spots)- but the surface only contains about 10% of our climate system's heat energy - the oceans contain 90% and that has continued increasing unabated. As for surface temperature those never really stopped increasing either, if you honestly look at all the data, not just one particular and incomplete temperature set of convenience.

As for the particular meme peddled by the infamous team of Roy Spencer, John Christy, and William Braswell at UAH. John Abraham had an interesting article looking into their satellite data - A story of competing teams and accuracy.

One satellite data set is underestimating global warming

A new study suggests that the University of Alabama at Huntsville is lowballing the warming of the atmosphere

A very important study was just published in the Journal of Climate a few days ago. This paper, in my mind, makes a major step toward reconciling differences in satellite temperature records of the mid-troposphere region. As before, it is found that the scientists (and politicians) who have cast doubt on global warming in the past are shown to be outliers because of bias in their results.

The publication, authored by Stephen Po-Chedley and colleagues from the University of Washington, discusses some major sources of error in satellite records.

For instance, after satellites are launched, they scan the Earth’s atmosphere and calibrate the atmospheric measurements using a warm target onboard the satellite and cold space. The accuracy with which the atmospheric measurements are calibrated can influence the inferred temperature of the atmosphere (called the warm-target bias).

Additionally, over the years, multiple satellites have been launched and the selection of which satellite data are used can play a role.

Finally, biases can occur because the satellite orbits drift during their lifetime and the influence of diurnal temperature variation can affect the global temperature trends.

Of these three errors, the last one (probably the most important one), was the focus of the just-published paper. ...

It is known that there is a problem because there are multiple groups that create satellite temperature records. For instance, NOAA, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). The problem is, their results don’t agree with each other. In particular, the UAH team, led by Dr. John Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer (who have discounted the importance and occurrence of climate change for years) present results that differ quite a bit from the others. In fact, in the current paper, it is stated that “Despite using the same basic radiometer measurements, tropical TMT trend differences between these groups differ by a factor of three.”

Hot on the heels of the news that 2014 was likely the warmest year on record at Earth’s surface, scientists have confirmed the lower part of Earth’s atmosphere is warming too.

Since 1979, the troposphere has warmed by 0.14 degrees per decade, scientists at the University of Huntsville (UAH) Alabama conclude.

Whether you choose to look at temperatures at Earth’s surface or higher up in the atmosphere, nine of the 10 hottest years on record have now occurred in the 21st century.

A tropospheric record

Earlier this week, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed Earth’s surface in 2014 – that’s the air above land and the top of the ocean – was most likely the warmest it’s been during the modern temperature record, stretching back to at least the late 19th century.

UN11/25 finishes: The global warming scam is now so riddled scandal that I'm sure there's one I've forgotten. So, not going too well is it!

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Nah, I'm afraid the problem is with people's ability to face frightening news. Your case is made by misrepresenting facts and ignoring facts, your self-censorship of reading material simply reinforces what you want to believe, it certainly does not inform or educate.

Although I will agree with you, things are not going too well at all.

Robust Responses of the Hydrological Cycle to Global Warming

JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 19

ISAAC M. HELD

NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton

BRIAN J. SODEN

Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

AL won't respond over here, so I'm sharing his response to my previous post made regarding Prof Ivar Giaever's pathetic YouTube PseudoScience talk where he denounces the scientific understanding of CO2 with truly childish distractions and misrepresentations that any honestly interested person ought to be able to see right through. Unfortunately most of his fans are not honest, they are brainwashed into thinking the whole world is against them and that if scientists have information they don't like, they should ignore it - in fact it's worse, in their minds it's OK to misrepresent the facts, fabricate scandals, attack scientific leaders and champion kindergarten arguments if in support of their political ideology.(touch up edits 11/25/15 am)

AL (9:46 AM -11/23/15) writes:

+citizenschallengeYT Not sure what you want with that link, but trying to prove anything with a personal blog that starts with

"This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science"

isn't directly proof of anything. The links on that page are just links to other blogs and not scientific papers (You should take a closer look. Plus you'll find links within links, just gotta poke around.).

I already know the alarmists point of view and as I said it's easily refuted with science and the latest data that we have.﻿ (OK, so when are you going to share some of that!?)

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AL, I don't believe you do understand anything of substance about the "alarmists point of view." I infer this from your shallow response that indicates you won't even allow yourself to actually read any of that information. Let alone digest any of it, nah you're too busy throwing up transparent defenses. Pretending you have some "science and latest data" that disputes the accepted understanding - but never coming up with more than arm-waving, which I looked at in my previous post.___________________________________

"… but trying to prove anything with a personal blog that starts with …isn't directly proof of anything."

AL, you serious? Looking for "direct proof" from an internet dialogue?

Why are you playing this game? Serious people appreciate that there is no "proof" in Natural Sciences.

It's always been about a preponderance of evidence, appreciation for understood natural laws and the flow of time, good faith assessment of evidence and learning from mistakes, along with a healthy sense of self-skepticism, such is the currency of "science" and learning to understand our planet. AL, I wonder if you appreciate the concept of consensus and to the best of our current understanding.

Beyond that I think you're confused about our discussion. Let's go back to the start of our "debate" - you said:

Heck he even admits he's only done the most cursory reviews of articles - evidently he hadn't been paying attention to anything outside his microscopic tunneling and solid state physics for the past half century - not much of a background for pontificating on climate science, but oh boy, pontificate he certainly does. Incidentally, it's not too difficult noticing that he nurses a grudge.

In any event, I owe "AL" an apology, he did post this list of specifics way back on the 9th, sorry for missing that, glad I stubbled on it this evening. I don't want to ignore your challenge so better late than never(I have not changed or eliminated any of your words). I'll keep it simple and let the links fill in the rest of the story. (I did some touch up editing 11/24/15 am)

"Only four UN scientists in the IPCC peer-review process explicitly endorsed the key chapter blaming mankind for warming the past 50 years, according to this recent analysis."

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Nonsense - You can find countless sources explicitly explaining that mankind is to blame for the warming of the past 50 years. Claiming otherwise is an out and out lie! Stop denying the CO2 we've put in the air, and the impacts of that increased atmospheric insulation on our climate. Besides human drivers of global warming are not limited to increasing greenhouse gases, but that's a whole different compounding story I'll save for another time.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

There are times I feel like setting up another blog simply to mirror Sou's steady flow of quality news regarding climate science contrarians. Why? In order to add some counterbalance to the phenomenal amount of right-wing astro-turfing going down on the internet these days. But, I can't even keep up with what's on my plate, so it remains a vague notion. Instead, I have to self-censor myself and keep my reposts of Hotwhopper's many informative articles to a minimum.

The other day she wrote one that is a must addition to my collection looking at climate science contrarian dirty tricks. With thanks to Sou for all the work she does at Hotwhopper..

You may have read about US Congressman Lamar Smith's ongoing vindictive harassment and smear campaign against scientists at NOAA. You might have also read about his latest allegations of "whistleblowers". If you are wondering if there is anything behind this, other than a deranged attack on science, scientists and the NOAA, then wonder no more.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Read a jaw dropping storyby Kenneth Vogel today that's mortifying but sadly believable. Another indication of how much our democracy has been crippled by little minds with mega war-bucks. A foreshadowing of what rationalist types are facing in the coming election. So much for fair play and a sense of cooperation as we prepare for coming challenges. I share these excerpts because people should know what's going on and I encourage you to read the entire article at Politico.

(takes aim at 2016)

The political network helmed by Charles and David Koch has quietly built a secretive operation that conducts surveillance and intelligence gathering on its liberal opponents, viewing it as a key strategic tool in its efforts to reshape American public life. …The competitive intelligence team has a staff of 25, including one former CIA analyst, and operates from one of the non-descript Koch network offices clustered near the Courthouse metro stop in suburban Arlington, Va. It has provided network officials with documents detailing confidential voter-mobilization plans by major Democrat-aligned groups. It also sends regular “intelligence briefing” …

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

My pal left with one final pot-shot to the effect: "Yes it is a religion. so there!"Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw that Dr. Joseph Romm has recently written a book, that from the reviews, does an admirable job of explaining the scientific basis for our Anthropogenic Global Warming understanding in a clear question and answer format.So for those who think AGW is a religion, you now have yet another opportunity to learn about the details of why AGW is a physical fact supported by much (… mega) research and observational evidence.But then you'd first need to extract yourselves from your own faith-based bubble of perception and be open to taking advantage of objective learning opportunities. Can you do it?

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Book review: Climate Change, What Everyone Needs to Know

A new book makes the case that those who understand the basics of climate change and clean energy will be the “smart money” in the coming years. Those who don’t, however, will make bad decisions for themselves and their family. They might, for instance, end up holding coastal property after prices have begun to crash due to due the growing twin threats of sea level rise and storm surge.

In short, climate change isn’t just something every educated person ought to know about because it will impact future generations or because everyone will be talking about it during the upcoming Paris climate talks. It is something everyone needs to know about now because “Climate change will have a bigger impact on your family and friends and all of humanity than the Internet has had.”

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

11/29/2016 I started this blog to debate climate science contrarians, I've done my part, they, the intellectual cowards for their part have run off and hide within their hermetically sealed echo chambers, safe to continue broadcasting more stupidity mixed with anger and hostility rather than constructive learning.

Now this horrendous election. Its changed everything and this blog, not sure where it's going, eventually I need to start another one, one less intent on futility reaching out for what ain't there and more focused on presenting a different perspective for its own sake, and to hell with the rest of it, it's too heart breaking.

I see Dec 19th as a key date. If there isn't serious focused engagement of the public in numbers that surprise everyone, well the oligarch will have their way with us.

Americans need to let Trump know from the gitgo, we do not approve of his con job and he better not get too crazy because he's earned zero good faith or honeymoon considerations. We shall see.

{edited 12/11/2014}

I know there are too many typos, what can I say, eyes aren't what they were, I get rushed, and always did have a thing with transposing…{well, I also hated high school "english" classes... bad call that one.}. Doing the best I can with what I got. Embarrassing though it is, it's better than doing nothing. Besides, it's the issues and reasoning that we should be worrying about.

Though I'm in my own little world here, I'm also constantly learning and evolving and do get occasional feedback and when I reread stuff and find errors or omissions or garbage, I fix it. If it's major I'll acknowledge it with an 'edited' note, minor stuff I don't bother.

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I hardly keep track of Anthony's latest antics (besides, with Sou on the job why bother - can't beat her insights). It's just me over here and I have more important things to do with my precious hours - still now that Anthony's luster has been wearing thin he's put his energy into discovering and honing new fresh faces to carry on the public show of the Republican/Libertarian strategic attack on science.

He seems to have transitioned into a ring-leader, perhaps mentor/coach would be better, producer? At least that's how Mr. Steele and his antics of the past year has gotten me to think about it. So in that regard this blog remains about WUWT's brand of thinking and logic and my struggle to understand the anatomy of the fraud they've perpetrated against mankind. {December 2014}

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ok, now some recommended websites:

This blog was started in April 2013 and is written by an actual scientist so it has a refreshingly serious objective air to it, plus he does a good clear job of explaining complex issues.

Tamino, an acknowledged statistical/mathematical expert of the highest order, at Open Mind also does an excellent job of holding Anthony’s feet to the fire with clearly explained facts and math. Check it out:http://tamino.wordpress.com~ ~ ~

And of course, there is the excellent, most up to date internet depository of climate studies and information for the non-expert public.

Then there's RealClimate.org the scientist's commentary site. Run by working climate scientists intended to help the interested public and journalists sort through the complexities of the climatology. They provide "quick response to developing stories and provide the context" that is too often missing from public media's depiction. {But, you better be serious and have some real science education/understanding under your belt if you want to keep up.}

I remember back in da day, good websites/blogs were few and far between. But over the past years that's been changing to the point that it's impossible to keep up with them all. Here's an incomplete, and long overdue addition to my above list: